Animals * * * *

       This Irish film was on limited release in Melbourne.  I missed it.   But I did manage to catch it on a flight this week, which is not quite a cinema experience I know, but it's an intimate film so I don't know that a big screen is really necessary to appreciate it.

WTF kind of review is that?  Clearly
 not all Aussies are as smart as our director

     It's about a friendship between a couple of Dublin girls, though one is an expat American.  They are hopeless party girls and drunkards.  That's not to say that they're brainless.  Far from it.  In fact part of the cleverness of this drama is that it makes you like them and care for them because they have so much potential.  Consequently we get concerned about the damage they are doing to themselves, not to mention the time they are wasting.   

    One of them wants to be a writer and she scrawls down sentences and ideas.  She later tries her hand at poetry.  But anybody knows that contrary to popular mythology most great writers who were also alcoholics did not write when they were drinking.  (Except me of course, but you've already figured that out.  Actually I'm not a drunkard, I'm just a bad writer)...back to the review....
     Their friendship is put to the test when the girl who wants to be a writer meets a ridiculously handsome charming man who plays the piano.  He's so dedicated to his craft he goes straight edge - no booze or drugs. She decides to do the same, leaving her party animal girlfriend out in the cold.
      It's a beautiful film.  A fine piece of drama.  They are great characters who are very well formed.  It's all set in Dublin - a city full of charm. 

    The direction is by an Australian apparently (Sophie Hyde). How that came about I don't know. But it's a great outcome and well worth a viewing.